Samuel P. Huntington

Samuel P. Huntington
Huntington in January 2004
Born	Samuel Phillips Huntington (1927-04-18)April 18, 1927 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	December 24, 2008(2008-12-24) (aged 81) Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality	American
Fields	Political science
Institutions	Harvard University Columbia University
Education	Stuyvesant High School
Alma mater	Harvard University University of Chicago Yale University
Known for	Clash of Civilizations
Influenced	Fukuyama, Mearsheimer

Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927 – December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs and the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor. During the Carter administration, Huntington was the White House Coordinator of Security Planning for the National Security Council. He is best known for his 1993 theory, the "Clash of Civilizations", of a post-Cold War new world order. He argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures, and that Islamic extremism would become the biggest threat to Western world domination. Huntington is credited with helping to shape U.S. views on civilian-military relations, political development, and comparative government.

Huntington was born on April 18, 1927, in New York City, the son of Dorothy Sanborn (née Phillips), a short-story writer, and Richard Thomas Huntington, a publisher of hotel trade journals. His grandfather was publisher John Sanborn Phillips. He graduated with distinction from Yale University at age 18, served in the U.S. Army, earned his Master's degree from the University of Chicago, and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University where he began teaching at age 23.

He was a member of Harvard's department of government from 1950 until he was denied tenure during 1959. Along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had also been denied tenure, he moved to Columbia University in New York. From 1959 to 1962 he was an associate professor of government at Columbia, where he was also deputy director of their Institute of War and Peace Studies. Huntington was invited to return to Harvard with tenure during 1963 and remained there until his death. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences during 1965. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel co-founded and co-edited Foreign Policy. Huntington stayed as co-editor until 1977.